Broadcast rights propel professional football clubs to exceed £4BN in revenue

Broadcast rights propel professional football clubs to exceed £4BN in revenue

Editor | 03 June 2016

Football 3 June 2016A Deloitte survey has revealed that the 92 professional football clubs in England generated over £4 billion for the first time in 2014/15, driven mainly by broadcasting deals.

According to the 25th Annual Review of Football Finance from the management consultant’s sports business group, in addition to this new benchmark for revenues, the clubs’ capital expenditure reached £305 million, the most ever invested in a single season. The 20 English Premier League (EPL) clubs alone generated an unprecedented £3.3 billion as the league continues to benefit from the current broadcast rights cycle, which began in 2013/14.

The lucrative broadcast rights deals also helped clubs to record a second consecutive year of pre-tax profits in 2014/15, the first time this has happened since 1999. TV money saw Premier League clubs record their second-highest ever operating profits (£546 million) and pre-tax profits (£121 million) in the season.

“The pace of football’s financial growth in two and a half decades is staggering,” commented Dan Jones, partner in the sports business group at Deloitte. “By half-time of the second televised Premier League game next year, more broadcast revenue will have been generated than during the whole of the First Division season 25 years ago. It is particularly reassuring to see that clubs are looking to spend on improving stadia and infrastructure.

“The impact of the Premier League’s broadcast deal is clear to see. For the first time, the Premier League leads the football world in all three key revenue categories - commercial, match-day and broadcast - and this is driving sustainable profitability. When the enhanced new broadcast deals commence in the 2016/17 season, operating profits could rise as high as £1 billion.”